Straight Aces
by greyslostwho
Summary: UNIKELY TO BE COMPLETED. That was the summer they both changed, and he broke all his promises... Jate, AU. R&R!
1. Preview

**A/N: She's Baaaaaack!! To celebrate a year on , I'm throwing myself back into this fandom at the deep end, attempting to write a decent AU chapter story. Jate, naturally. I've done a very bad thing, neglecting this fandom for so so long! Please forgive me!! :-(**

**This chapter is sort of an introduction to my story, which is gonna be about Jack and Kate having known each other all their lives. I like to think of it as my biggest challenge yet, as far as Jate is concerned. Hopefully you'll like it enough to review, and I can continue the story. **

"Promise me we'll be together forever, Jack? Best friends for always?" she raised her eyes to meet his, brimming with courage and with strength, just waiting on his word. He looked at her sadly. "Kate, can't we just..." he gestured wordlessly to the game of cards laid at her feet, hardly visible now in the twilight. She caught one of his hands, forcing him to look back into those emerald orbs. "Jack, I need you to promise me you won't leave me." she said, and he thought there was a flicker of sadness, of regret, behind those eyes. He looked down, thinking. She could tell that by the little creases in his forehead, the slight tapping of his other hand on his thigh. She didn't understand what there could be to think about. It was a question she hadn't even considered there being a negative answer to, until now. A question that hadn't even been a question in her mind.

They knew each other so well. They always had. Kate couldn't remember back to a time when she hadn't known and loved Jack. Skipping in the fields together, not caring that they weren't playing catch in the school playground with the other kids. Jack teaching her to ride a bike, and putting the band-aid on himself when she fell. Skipping school out the back under the old oaktree, trying cigarettes and bottles of cider, sat few inches away from the real rebels, pretending that they didn't notice each other. Then there was the summer of Andrea, the long legged blonde teen model, and the summer of Chad, the nineteen year old biker who dropped out of college. There was the week of Sophia-Marie, a quiet, bookish girl Jack met in the library, and the month of Kyle, the sweet boy who worked nights down at the diner with her Mom. There was the year, back when they were at middle school, when Sam Austin had helped them build the tree house in the woods, and the summer Jack taught Kate to drive in his old, off-white Mustang. That was the same year Kate taught him to ride bareback, and the year Jack's dog, Perry died and they buried him just off the Austin's land, by the river.

That was the same year Kate lost her virginity to Aston Rivers from the football team, and the year her Mom met Wayne.  
The year Jack didn't talk to her for two whole weeks because she stood him up when they were supposed to be going to the movies, and the year Jack first caught his dad blind drunk at his desk.  
That was the first year Kate saw Jack cry, and the first time Jack couldn't do anything to make Kate feel better.  
That was the year the madness begun, and they both changed.  
That year was nearly over now.

"Jack?" Kate said, her voice wavering now. He turned to her, a false smile plastered all over his face. "Sure, Kate." he said, "It goes without saying. I promise we'll be together forever"  
She smiled, and buried her head in his chest. On a crazy, spur of the moment, slightly intoxicated thought, he tilted her chin up towards him and kissed her gently. She closed her eyes and leant in to the kiss. Then, without allowing it to progress, he moved away, and held her close to him, leaning up against the tree.

That was the year he moved away to medical school, the year he broke his promise.

**A/N 2:I know it's short, but think of it almost as a preview for the fic. Please review and let me know what you think.**

**xgreyslostwhox**


	2. In the Beginning

**A/N: I just had to get the next chapter up straight away, give you some idea of where I am going with this. Bear in mind this chapter is mostly filler, an insight into the childhood Jack and Kate shared. The next chapter will be an actual scene out of their lives, though.**

**I've made a couple of changes from the show, aside from the obvious ones. Jack has an older brother, Geoff, and a younger sister, Maureen. Kate's still an only child, but as I don't know how long her parents were together I'm having them divorce when Kate is thirteen. I think that's it for now. **

He remembers the first time he met her. Christian and Margo Shepherd were holding their yearly summer barbeque, as they always did, every single year, without fail, in the backyard of their huge property. This was the first year Jack could remember clearly. The previous years were all a blur of hotdogs and spicy onion chutney, homemade by Mrs Russell down the road, and his older brother Geoff poking him and taunting him with his friends from the local school. Those years weren't the ones that would stick in his memory forever. The first year he cared about was the year he was five, the year his mother was pregnant with his little sister Maureen, the year his father got promoted to attending, although he didn't know that at the time. He was sat on the steps in the garden, playing with a long stem of grass, sprinkling the little seeds over the concrete.

He heard a sneeze, and looked up. Standing in front of him in a little pink skirt and top, already covered in grass-stains, and wearing a sunshiny smile stood a little girl, clutching a daisy in her hand. She had hair the colour of chocolate, he remembered, and her face was smeared with strawberry juice. He smiled at here.

"I'm Katie." She said, and squatted on the ground in front of him.

"I'm Jack." He said, smiling at her, and then returning to playing with his stem of grass. Following his lead, she picked one and started to pick the seeds off of it, one by one, in what struck him as a very girlish manner. He wished he could be as patient as that, instead of having to slide all the seeds off in one go.

He saw the looming shadow before he looked up. His brother, Geoff, eight years old, stood over the unlikely pair of them.

"Want to play, Jack?" he asked, frowning slightly. Jack would usually have jumped at a chance to play with the older boys, but this time he looked at the little girl, sat with her legs crossed, tongue between her teeth as she picked all the petals off a daisy, one by one.

"No." he said. Geoff frowned even more.

"But you always want to play." He said, sticking out his bottom lip, "And we need someone to be the baddy."

Jack looked from his brother to the girl again. "No thank you." He said politely, as his mother had always taught him.

Geoff looked at him strangely and then ambled off, searching for another candidate to be tormented under the guise of a game.

Jack returned to his piece of grass and the little girl, who had now started completely ignoring him, immersed in her task. Jack wasn't sure why it was so peaceful, sitting like this, even with everything going on around him.

It must have been about half an hour later when a man with whitish hair and wearing an army outfit came and lifted the little girl up. "Time to go home, Kate." He said, shifting her onto his back. "Time to go now."

She struggled a little but then settled on her father's back.

"Who's your friend, Katie?" the man said.

"I'm Jack." He piped up. "Are you a soldier, mister?"

The man smiled. "I certainly am, Jack." His eyes were kind, but he looked old.

"Wow." Jack said, and then he waved at the little girl. "Bye." He said simply.

But she had already fallen asleep.

He didn't see her again for a couple of months. Then his mother organised a play date with him and the boy down the road, Edward Russell. He liked going to Edward's, because Edward had a train set that moved round by itself, but he didn't really like Edward all that much. But Edward had a little sister, Nancy, and Nancy had a play date too. Little Katie Austin from next door. She didn't seem to remember him at first, but playing with Nancy and Edward they slipped into some sort of rhythm. Something maybe with a slight shadow of forethought.

Jack was five, Katie was four. When Jack started at the local school a whole year before her she kicked up her heels and pretended it didn't matter. But when she started the next year, when she was five and he was six, having Jack Shepherd in the playground, the boy in the grade above, that was enough to make her smile through every day, bored already by school and the boundaries it placed on her.

When she first got there, she worried because Jack had his friends. But she began to notice he was something of a loner himself, not like his ultra-popular brother (by Geoff's own admission), but more the solitary type. She and Jack, they were the most unlikely pair, and the teachers often chuckled at them as they had competitions, who could walk along the kerb the furthest before falling up, who could spin around in a circle the most times before they fell over with dizziness, who could run for the longest without getting tired. All their games seemed, strangely, to be tests of endurance, tests of strength. But as the years of early childhood progressed into the years of wild, imaginative adventure games and laughing, and just chatting, the teachers realised there never had been a better pair.

They adored each other, that everyone could see. Jack was ten and Kate was nine and they were inseparable. Margo Shepherd had got used to having Kate Austin from number seven around to dinner as much as Diane Austin had gotten used to having Jack Shepherd playing in her garden until the late hours. They were hardly seen apart, they became less their own person, and more 'Jack-and-Kate' to everyone in their small town.

The spinal surgeon's son and the lieutenant's daughter.

But could anything that wonderful last?

**A/N 2: I hope you liked it. Please review for me!!**


	3. The Treehouse

**A/N: Here's the next installment - Jack, Kate and a treehouse!! (I have greater plans for said treehouse later in the story). I also tried to work with the character of Sam Austin here, trying to judge what he would have been like back when he and Kate's Mom were together. For the purpose of this story, he doesn't know Kate isn't his daughter.**

**The Treehouse**

It summer, and Jack was eleven, Kate just ten. School had just broken up and they walked home together, at ease side by side, Jack's satchel swinging against Kate's legs, Kate's mass of wild chocolate curls whipping across his face in the summer breeze.

"So my Dad said we could make a treehouse this summer." She grinned at him mischievously.

His eyes lit up, "Where? Really?"

She grinned. "Sure. In the woods behind our houses. He said he had one when he was a kid and he thought it would keep us out of trouble for the summer."

He smiled at her. "Your dad's awesome."

She laughed. "Not when he's yelling at Mom." She gave him a smile that he could see straight through. "It's not his fault though. Mom's not great then either."

He reached out and took her hand, a simple gesture of friendship and solidarity, which would become Kate's lifeline in the years that would throw the worst of the worst at her.

"Thanks." She murmured.

They walked in silence for a moment, Kate watching the trees move in the wind and Jack watching his friend with her sad green eyes and her stubbornly curly hair. Then, as quickly as the brightness had left her eyes, Kate's seemed to regain it, her hair flailing wildly as she let go of his hand and ran ahead. "Come on!" she shouted back to him, "He might let us get started tonight!" Jack raced after her, blindly following. He would follow her anywhere.

Sam Austin smiled when he opened the door on the two grinning, out of breath children. Kate smiled the smile that she saved especially for him and Jack grinned beside her.

"Come in, Jack, …honey, I've made you both some celebratory pancakes."

"What's a celebratory?" Kate asked, her eyes inquisitive and wide.

"We're having a celebration, Katie. Because it's summer and school's out."

That made her smile, but as she sunk into her chair at the kitchen table, the smile faded. Jack's bleak expression mirrored hers. Because next year, at the end of this summer, everything would be different. Jack wouldn't be at their school anymore, he was headed for the middle school in town, and for a whole year Kate would be left alone in a school full of hostile girls her own age, girls she had never needed to befriend. Because she had always had Jack.

As she squeezed the lemon over her pancake and watched Jack squirt the maple syrup, she spoke to him, her voice low and serious. "Will you still be my friend, even when you're in the big school?" she asked, her bottom lip quivering a little bit. Jack grinned at her. "Course I will." He said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "We'll always be friends."

She smiled at him, believing him absolutely, knowing that if he said something would happen, then it would. And that was that.

Sam wouldn't let them start the treehouse that day, but promised them that he would start first thing the next morning. What he hadn't anticipated was how eager his daughter would be, dragging him up at seven o'clock in the morning just so she could have breakfast and meet Jack in the woods out back by half past. The boy was there already, waiting for them both, his terrier Perry yapping away at his heels. Sam smiled at the friend his daughter had found in the doctor's son. Maybe they were an unlikely pair, but Jack was sturdy, friendly, polite and intelligent, the perfect counterpart to his daughter's mischievous nature.

The single thing that worried him would be what the future would hold. Jack would go to college, of course he would, and he didn't know if he and Diane could find that money. And was it healthy for a little girl to grow up with just a boy as her best friend? Was that right? But he pushed those worries to the back of his mind for now. Right now, Kate was just a child, a laughing, happy child, and this boy was the one person she cared about the most in the whole world.

He set the two of them about collecting wood as he started to build the tree house. This was one of the first summers he had spent at home with his daughter, usually he was posted away somewhere, and he wanted to make the most of it. Who knew, tomorrow he could receive a letter informing him he would be posted in Afghanistan, or in the Falklands or somewhere dangerous, and then he might never see her again. And since his marriage to Diane was on the rocks, she was the one thing sometimes that kept him going, through the nightmares of the battles he'd fought in, through the difficulty and the pain. So he had to make every day of this summer count. It could always be his last.

It took them two weeks to finish the treehouse. Jack and Kate helped Sam all they could, and when her father went to tell Kate that she couldn't help with the roofing because she was too little and not strong enough, he saw the light in her eyes that _that boy _and this treehouse had put there and he let her muddle along at her own pace. When it was finished it was magnificent to the children, the size of a small bedroom, with a little balcony with a little brick barbeque on it, and actual glass window and they'd managed to get the Shepherd's old sofa that they didn't want anymore up there. It was like their own little home.

The first night, Sam bought a bottle of coca cola from the local shop, some chocolate chip cookies and a tub of ice cream, and the three of them sat up there and watched the stars until late at night. They talked and when it got completely dark and they could hear the owls hooting in the woods they told ghost stories. Sam smiled when he saw his little girl had fallen asleep with her head on Jack's shoulder, her curls flopping over across her face. And within a few minutes Jack had fallen asleep too, his head resting back on hers, smiling slightly in his sleep.

Sam Austin watched the pair of them for a few moments, then he tucked a blanket around himself and rested his head against the wall. There sure would be hell to pay with Diane in the morning. But he didn't care about that right now. Kate was happy, and if she was happy with Jack, in a rickety treehouse he'd built himself, and they weren't home all night – well, then so be it.

**Sam was pretty hard to write, I hope I did ok!! Sorry if this is sounding kinda filler-ish atm, I'm just trying to show how Jack and Kate's friendship built up from childhood. **

**Please review and let me know what you think**

**xgreyslostwhox**


	4. Smashed Plates and Broken Hearts

**Sorry this chapter's taken so long, I've been very busy.**

**Smashed Plates and Broken Hearts**

She could hear them at it again, yelling at each other like a pair of squabbling teenagers. It was the same almost every night now, had been for about the last year. She had kind of become accustomed to it, and most days she could just deal with it. But sometimes, when she hit one of her lows and just couldn't take anything anymore – she couldn't blank it out, pretend it wasn't happening. It was suddenly there, and it was real, and it wasn't actually something other families did, like she told herself. She had never heard Christian and Margo down at Jack's arguing once, and he was always treated to the blazing Austin rows, every time he came round.

Today she was on a low because it was winter, and she wasn't a winter girl. And because Stacey Correll at school had told her she had no boobs and did she think she would ever get a boyfriend if she looked like a ten year old. She didn't care about that. She had the best friend in the entire world, and she was tougher than to take things stupid girls like Stacey said to heart. But what had hurt was Nancy laughing along with her. Nancy, who although she had always been second to Jack, she had been close to Kate since the time they used to have play dates together, since kindergarten. She'd thought Nancy was better than all the others, the ones that laughed at her and Jack sitting together, heads down, chatting, at lunch, discussing the latest books, the latest movies, laughing at her for actually paying attention in English class, and in Math.

But Nancy had just let her down.

Like everyone always did.

Like Jason Quick, the boy she'd fancied for like twelve days until he called her a short-ass and asked why she never bothered to wear any makeup, like a real girl.

Like her mother, never there to listen to her, always out at night.

Like her father, her beloved father even, moping around when her mother was out, shouting the house down when she was in.

Like everyone, except Jack.

So that was why, that day, she just couldn't **deal **anymore. She could hear their shouting, she could hear their anger, and for once she actually _listened. _

"This has gone too far, Diane! How much longer do you expect me to take this?"

"Don't pretend you're so perfect, don't think I don't know how you look at Allison Bentley!"

An exasperated shout from her father. "Allison Bentley? I've hardly ever spoken to the woman! Is that the best you can do? Dragging up your incurable jealousy again?"

"It's not jealousy, it's a legitimate fear!"

"Oh for God's sake, Diane, grow up a bit! If anything, I'm the one that should be worried! I don't know for sure you're at the diner every night when you say you are! You could be f-"

Her mother's scream: "Don't accuse me of things you know nothing about!"

Her father's angry, low tone: "You're never home. You hardly speak to your daughter. Me, I can handle. But Kate…"

"Don't. Talk. To. Me. About. Kate."

"Why not? You're her mother, aren't you? Don't you think it's maybe time you took some responsibility for her?"

"I work a lot! Which is more than you do!"

Kate shuddered. That was a low blow. Her father was on leave from the army at the moment, after a traumatic attack he was a victim of in the Falklands. He'd escaped practically unharmed, but the event, which he would speak of to no one, especially his daughter, had clearly damaged him in other ways. Some nights when she came downstairs for a drink of water he would be laid there, in his permanent bed on the couch, crying out in his sleep, plagued by nightmares.

She heard a smashing sound and winced. Too late, she felt the tear drip from her eye. She brushed it away violently, suddenly angry. Angry at herself for crying, for caring. Angry at them for exposing her to this. Angry, angry angry.

She pulled the pillow over her head and started to hum a tune, only quietly, but so it was reverberating in her ears and she couldn't hear them anymore. Then she could pretend everything was ok, that they were asleep and so would she be in a few moments…

The next morning there was no used blanket and pillow on the sofa. Her Mom had already left, gone to the diner as she always did, and there was no sign of her Dad. She figured he'd gone for an early run or something, so made herself some French toast for breakfast and ate it and drank her orange juice in her own, personal, comfortable silence.

She didn't mind her own company. She wasn't the sort of person that would get lonely, left in a house by herself. Jack was. Another way they counterbalanced each other. Jack needed someone to talk to, someone just to _be with, _at all time. She could be that person for him, and when he realised she needed space, he was the first to give it. Another way they fitted together, like two pieces of a puzzle.

It wasn't until she had slung her duffel bag over her shoulder and headed for the door that she saw the note on the coffee table in the lounge. A folded piece of white paper, with the word KATE scrawled on it in big letters on the front. Her heart sinking with a strange foreboding she could not place, she walked through and picked it up.

_Kate,_

_Your father has gone away for a while, I'm not sure where to. He's taken some of his clothes but he's left all his work stuff here so he will be back before he has to go back to fight. Don't worry about it. You need to take the key to school because there will be no one to let you in when you get home. No going round to Jack's, please. And could you put some dinner in the oven for me when I get home from work. I've taken an extra shift so I'll be back around 10.30._

_Be good, _

_Mom_

_X_

It was strange how the tears, having flowed so readily the night before, stuck in her throat now. _Don't worry about it. _How could she not? Her father was her one grip onto sanity in her house, her father she was proud of, loved so much. She scanned the letter again, trying to absorb the bleak truth behind her mother's bland words. How could she be so matter of fact, knowing how much it would tear her daughter up?

And for the first time in her life it occurred to Katherine Austin that maybe her mother wasn't the best of parents.

**Reviews are appreciated!**


	5. Skipping

**Skipping**

"Hey, Kate, wait up!"

Sighing, she turned around. Jack was running down the street behind her, his school bag bouncing on his back. She stood and waited, cursing under her breath. He caught up in seconds.

"How come you didn't wait on the corner for me today?" he asked, his eyes bright and unsuspecting. Happy.

"I'm not going to school today." She said blankly, and his smile disappeared straight away. He could read her like a book. She watched his eyes scan over her tied back hair and her duffel bag and her French class folder tucked under her arm.

"Oh yeah? Sure looks like it."

She looked at her scuffed shoes. She hated lying to him. "Well, I gotta go to the dentists."

"Hey, no you don't. You went last Tuesday – Kate, what's going on?"

"Nothing, Jack. I'm just not going to school today, ok?"

He shook his head, his forehead furrowing. "No, it's not ok, Kate. You skipping?"

She stared back into his brown eyes, defiant, "What if I am, Jack? What is it to you?"

He struggled to get something out for a second and then said nothing. She turned her shoulder and started walking down the road away from him.

"Wait, Kate!"

"What?" she spat, "Can't you just go to school like a good boy and leave me alone?"

He took a deep breath, calming himself. He didn't want to fight with her. She was obviously mad as hell about something. He just had to be rational, sensible, make her see sense…

"What's wrong, Kate?" he asked slowly, his voice changing from annoyed to worried. Their eyes met.

"It's nothing."

"It's not nothing. Not if you're skipping school cos' of it. It's something."

She chuckled a little. "You just can't leave me alone, can you?"

He smiled and shook his head. "Nope."

"It's… it's my Mom. And Dad." She whispered, so low he had to strain to hear her. He could have smacked himself. He knew, from the hushed discussions his parents were having that Sam and Diane were going through some difficulties in their marriage, and they had been for some time. But it hadn't really occurred to him that anything would come of it.

"Shit." He swore. "Sorry, Katie. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

She raised one eyebrow. "Well, you already made me come out with half of it, so I might as well finish, huh?"

He laughed quietly. Then checked his watch. "I tell you what, why don't we take a rain check on school for today and go sit out on the back field and you can tell me there?"

Her eyes widened. "I wouldn't ask you to skip with me, Jack. I just didn't think I could take it, not today, anyway."

"Double Maths is the only thing worth learning for me today anyway, so I don't mind. We could play cards for a bit, or just talk."

"Talking sounds good." She smiled, and for a moment he thought that the look in her eyes was older than her thirteen years. So he slung an arm around her shoulders and they diverted themselves from the traffic of bored kids trailing into junior high and onto the rough track that headed out towards the field.

/

Sat by the oak when the sun reached the highest point in the sky, Kate rested her head against Jack's shoulder.

"It'd been bad for years, really. Then Dad left for a while, and then he came back, but yesterday Mom told me they're getting a divorce. I… I don't know how I feel. I want Dad to be happy, and he's not when he's at home… but I don't know if I can take it if he leaves. Mom's always at work and Dad's the only one who really listens to me…"

Jack felt the wet seeping through his shirt before he realised she was crying. He handed her a tissue from his bag and thumbed away the tears on her cheeks.

"Sorry." She whispered, "I hadn't cried about it yet."

He hugged her. "S'ok. I don't mind."

"I just wish I could forget about it, for a little bit, y'know?"

He nodded. And then an idea came to him. He remembered something Geoff had told him about what he had done hanging out at the local park on a Friday night. He got up quickly. "Wait there." He said to Kate.

He crossed the distance between their oak tree and the little copse to the side in a couple of strides. Taking a deep breath, he walked towards the other skippers, with their pale makeup and their punk hair cuts and the cigarettes hanging from between their lips. And the discarded bottles on the floor. It stunk of weed and tobacco and alcohol.

"Hey." He said calmly, suddenly very aware that he was only a fourteen year old boy.

"Hey, isn't that the Doc's son?" one of the punks said, raising a yellow finger to point at Jack. The girl next to him, with pink hair and a studded dog collar, took a long drag of her cigarette and nodded.

"Yeah, t'is. Hey, little Doc, what do you want?"

_Deep breaths. _"I was wondering how much you wanted for a couple bottles of that?"

"What? The cider? Honey, that ain't half decent!"

He shrugged. "Just…how much?"

Pink Hair looked across at another member of the group, a tall boy with acne scarred skin and a Mohawk. "How much for the cider, Ray?"

Ray the Mohawk's eyes rolled back a little in his head. "Gimme ten bucks, lad, and you can take the lot. Crap stuff, anyway."

Jack rooted around and pulled ten dollars out his pocket, dropping it onto the floor in front of Pink Hair. He took the carrier bag full of cider bottles and turned to leave.

"I hope you aint planning on getting hammered on that, little Doc." Pink Hair shouted after him, "It's shit!"

But Jack kept walking, a slight smile edging onto his face.

Kate had her eyes closed, tears leaking from under them, leant back against the tree. He stared at her for just a second. When had she stopped being a little girl? Sure, she was only thirteen, but she had hips now, and she was beginning to get boobs, and her legs were long and slim and-

"What you staring at?"

"Nothing." Jack looked away to disguise his expression. "I got us some stuff. To help you forget."

"What stuff?"

"Cider from the punks over there."

She looked at the cider in distaste but shrugged. "What the hell…" she said and took a can, capping it open and taking a long swig.

"This is gross, Jack."

"They did warn me." He grinned, and took a gulp from his own.

/

"What time is it?" Jack mumbled. He was laid sprawled out on the grass on his front with his head to the side, and Kate was leant back against the tree looking at him.

"I dunno." She said, a wide grin splitting her face.

"Check you watch…"

"Oh…yeah." She squinted down at her watch, but the clock faces just seemed to keep doubling up.

"What time's it, Katie?" he slurred, shuffling closer to her across the grass.

"I can't seeeeeeeee." She whined, "You look."

She thrust the watch into his face, about two centimetres away from his nose.

"It's…. too close." Jack announced loudly, and the pair of them burst into wild, raucous laughter, rolling around heaving with cider-induced hysteria.

Then there was a heavy silence, and then Jack spoke. "You have grass stains on your shirt, Katherine Austin."

She propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him. "Do I now, Jack…erine Shepherd?"

Again, the side splitting laughter. Jack looked up into Kate's green eyes and for a second they just stared at one another.

"You know that I love you, don't you?" she said simply, holding his gaze. He smiled lightly, "Of course I do." He said, "And I love you too. Always."

She collapsed her head onto the grass again, taking a deep breath.

"Am I drunk, Jack?" she asked, head spinning, staring down into the ground.

"Mebbe." Jack dismissed it with a wave of his hand, and then cracked open another can of cider and handed it to her. "More?" he asked. She took it from him wordlessly and took a large gulp. Then she set it down and rolled onto her back next to where he was sat, staring up at the sky.

"I can see the moon." She murmured.

"Me too." Jack whispered, drinking the last dregs from his can and hiccupping, "The mooooooooon."

"Moooooooooooon." She echoed.

They both stared aimlessly upwards for a minute, and then Jack gulped. "Shit. The moon. Kate – it's late."

She giggled. "You're a poet and you don't know it." She teased.

But the sudden realisation had sobered him up. "We've got to get home, Katie. Come on."

He dragged her up from the grass, and suddenly the cold air hit them. He handed her his jacket wordlessly, took their school bags in one hand and her arm in the other.

"Come on, mine's nearest, we'll go there."

/

"Jack Andrew Christian Shepherd, what time do you call this?" Margo screamed the moment she opened the door. "I was on the verge of calling the police! What about your homework? Geoff said you didn't even go to soccer practice! Where have you been? Is… is that alcohol I can smell?"

Kate was still giggling behind Jack, clutching his arm like a limpet.

"Can we come in, Mom?" Jack asked meekly, staring her right in the eye.

She ushered them in, closing the door behind them both. "Katherine, are you drunk?" she asked with distaste.

"Kate, go and sit in the living room." Jack said. "Just for a second. I need to talk to Mom."

Margo looked like she was going to protest, but then she nodded, and Kate staggered into the room next door. Jack followed Margo into the kitchen and shut the door behind them.

"She's going through a difficult time at home, Mom, Sam just left. After…after school we just went up to the field and had a couple of cans of cider, that's all, I guess she drank more than I did, she just-" he broke off, feeling himself almost choke up, "Please don't tell Diane. Kate doesn't get on with her as it is, and with her Dad gone – Just let her stay here for the night, please. I'll do the chores for a whole year if that's what it takes."

Margo Shepherd looked at her son, staring him right in the eye. It was clear that he hadn't been a saint himself but that the alcohol's effects were wearing off and that he was talking sense. And she had a soft spot for little Katie, even if Christian had no time for the girl. She smiled a little.

"Promise me this won't happen again."

"I promise." He said straight away, deciding he would worry about that when it came to it.

"I'll get your dad to check she's ok when he gets home, but you can set her up a bed in your room and you can sleep on Geoff's floor."

"We can just share, I don't-"

Margo looked at her son, "Don't you think you're getting a little old for that, Jack?"

He thought about her drunken admission earlier and sighed.

"I suppose." He said, and smiled once at his mother before going to check on his best friend.

**Hope you liked it. The moooooooon thing is taken from real experience.**

**Please review.**


	6. The Morning After

**The Morning After**

Kate woke up not knowing where the hell she was. She was dressed in a pair of pyjamas way too small for her, and her head felt like someone had hit her over the head with her dad's Jeep. _Her dad. _Swallowing a sigh, she clambered off the mattress she was sleeping on, registering as she did so that she was in Maureen's room. The pink flowers adorning every inch of the wall kind of gave the seven year old away. So she was at Jack's. Someone had brushed her hair for her and dressed her, clearly, because she had no recollection of it. She had no recollection of anything past sitting with Jack under the tree in the field drinking her second can of cider…

Oh.

That would explain the headache. She grimaced and walked out of the room. She poked her head around Jack's bedroom door as she did, but he wasn't there and his bed was made, the curtains pulled back and the sun streaming in. Oh God, the sunlight hurt. She darted back to Maureen's room, found the jacket she had been wearing the previous day and shrugged it over her shoulders before making her way down the stairs into the Shepherd kitchen. Margo, Geoff, Jack and Maureen were sat around the kitchen table, sipping orange juice and eating French toast.

"Hello?" she half-whispered, unsure what she had done the night before, wary. Jack looked up at her and a smile split his face, as usual. Nothing too terrible, then.

"Sit down, Kate. I'll get you some juice."

"Coffee." She croaked, her head pounding with the sound of her own voice. "Can I have some coffee?"

Margo made a disapproving face, but got up to get some, gesturing at Jack to sit back down. Jack patted the seat next to him and Kate eased herself into the chair.

"Guess you got yourself pretty hammered last night, eh, Austin?" Geoff said without even looking up from his breakfast. Kate flushed a furious scarlet, and stared down at the plate of toast Jack had slid in front of her.

"What's hammered?" Maureen lisped.

"Nothing, sweetie." Margo said quickly, and then turned to stare at her eldest son sternly. "That's quite enough of that, young man." She said, and smiled brightly at Kate. "How are you feeling, Katherine?"

Jack glared at his mother as Kate mumbled, "Fine thanks, Mrs Shepherd."

Geoff raised his eyebrows to high heaven but said nothing, wolfing down the remains of his breakfast and getting up from the table. "I'm going to Sally's, Mom." He said brightly, winking at Kate.

Margo nodded briefly and didn't take her eyes off Kate as her son left the room. Kate found this a little unnerving. She sipped her coffee and munched her toast in silence, whilst Jack talked brightly to Maureen about something completely unimportant. Finally the little girl got up from the table, put her plate and glass in the sink and skipped off upstairs.

Kate caught Jack's eyes. This was it. They were in for so much trouble. He started to get up from the table and she started to follow, but Margo saw that one coming.

"Sit down, both of you." She said sharply, looking between them. Miserably, they both sunk into their chairs, looking down into their laps, ready to face the music.

"Mom, I-"

"Shhh, Jack." Margo said, eyes darting between the guilty pair, stern. "Just listen to me. I don't want to know details, I don't want to know why. I just want the two of you to promise me that it won't happen again."

Jack looked gratefully at his mother for not bringing up the issue of Sam leaving. Kate looked ashamedly down at her hands. Margo continued, "Trust me when I tell you this – drinking to drown your sorrows solves nothing. I know from experience. I'm not going to punish either of you and no one else needs to know about this, but I want your word – both of you – that this won't happen again…"

"I promise, Mom. Thank you." Jack said automatically. Kate had flushed a furious red, realising Margo clearly knew about her parents.

"I promise." She mumbled, and then something occurred to her and she looked up, "Did my Mom ask where I was? Did you let her know I was here?"

Margo's face changed for a second, her expression was that of utter sympathy towards the thirteen year old sat opposite her. "She… she called. She was worried. I… I let her know you were staying here."

Kate cocked her head to one side and looked Jack's Mom in the eye.

"You don't have to lie to me, Mrs Shepherd." She said, "I know she wouldn't have phoned."

Margo sighed. "Well, I let her know, anyway, sweetie."

Kate nodded, but her eyes were sad. "Thank you." She said. Jack reached out and took her hand.

Later, the pair of them sat in Jack's bedroom, watching a cartoon, snuggled up against the pillows.

"Your Mom was cool." Kate said, "I thought we were gonna be so grounded."

Jack snickered a little, "Me too." He said, "God, Kate, you were completely drunk!"

She bit her lip a little nervously. "I had my fingers crossed when I promised it wouldn't happen again." She said, "Cos despite the headache, I had a pretty good time. What I can remember of it, anyway."

Jack looked worried for a moment. "Can't you remember anything?"

"Not really after the second or third can. Why? Did I do something embarrassing?"

_You know that I love you, don't you?_

"No, nothing. I can't really remember either. It's ok."

She rested her head against his shoulder. "I guess it's kinda a good thing my dad's not around anymore." She said, "He'd got ballistic."

Jack tried to force a smile, but couldn't manage it. "You'll still see him, Kate."

"Sure I will." She said, but she didn't sound convinced. He leant his head against hers.

"And if you don't, you'll always have me."

"I know."

**Sorry it took so long :P**

**Please R&R!**


	7. Sophia Marie

**Sophia-Marie**

"Kate! I hope you're not going anywhere!" Diane called, "I'm about to go to work and the washing needs doing and the kitchen floor needs washing!"

Kate rolled her eyes, ignored her mother and slipped out the front door. She jogged the first 100 metres or so away from her house and then slowed to a walk, cursing her mother in her head.

It took her ten minutes to walk to Jack's from her new, smaller house, set back from the road a little, in the trees. She hated not being four paces down the road from him. She knocked the door quickly, catching her breath. Maureen answered.

"Hey, Mo." She said, "Is Jack there?"

Maureen, at eleven, looked near to identical to her brother, with brown straight hair and hazel eyes and a winning smile. Kate didn't even wait for an answer before stepping in the door.

"Actually, he's not." Maureen started, and Geoff came racing down the stairs, leather jacket in hand. At eighteen now, Geoff was tall and manly, and suddenly Jack seemed young in comparison.

"Hey, Austin." He said, looking at Kate, "Jackie's not in right now. He's gone to see that girl again, hasn't he, Mo? What was her name? Sarah?"

"Sophia-Marie." Maureen said proudly, a smirk on her face.

Kate was a little stunned. "He's gone out?" she asked.

Geoff nodded slowly, looking at Kate strangely. "He didn't tell you? I'da thought you woulda been the first to know. Jackie's got himself a girlfriend at last!"

Maureen snickered. Kate grimaced on Jack's behalf when Geoff referred to him as Jackie.

"I….I thought we were gonna hang out today…" she sighed, "Do you know where he is?"

Geoff smirked a little bit. He and Kate had never got on, and he seemed to be enjoying seeing her bewildered like this. "No idea, sugar. Sorry."

And he pushed past the girls out of the door. Margo came through from the kitchen to see what was going on.

"Hey, Kate." She smiled, "Jack's out at the moment."

"Yeah," Kate said dazedly, "Geoff said."

"With Sophia-Marie." Maureen said proudly.

"I guess… I guess I'll just go home then." Kate said.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay for a coffee? And you could give Maureen a hand with her art project…"

Maureen looked up at the older girl with such an expression on her face Kate could not refuse. She'd always had a soft spot for Jack's little sister, maybe compensating for the loathing she felt for his brother. She shrugged. "I guess I could help." She said.

"Yay!" Maureen said, "I'm painting Perry – from this photo Daddy took of him at Christmas, but I can't get the fur to go right…" she dragged Kate upstairs by her sleeve. Margo gave her a grateful smile.

///

She'd been painting with Maureen for three hours when she heard the front door open and someone walk in. Seconds later she heard the voice: "Mom, we're back!"

_We. _That meant someone else was with him.

"Hey, Mo? Do you mind if I go talk to Jack for a bit?"

"No problem." The girl didn't even look up from her painting. Kate grabbed her jacket from Maureen's bed and left the room, closing the door behind her. She walked calmly down the stairs and into the kitchen, a strange emotion rising in her stomach, her eyes blinking furiously away her subconscious tears.

In the kitchen, Jack and Margo were sat around the table, with a girl Kate could only see the back of. She had a short black bob of hair, and thin-rimmed black glasses. What made Kate stop in her tracks was her hand and Jack's hand, entwined on the table top, and how close to each other they were sitting, heads together, laughing.

She was ready to walk away, help Maureen finish off her painting and slip out the back door, without Jack even knowing she was there… she guessed she'd never considered the possibility of Jack having a girlfriend… she was his best friend, and she guessed she'd always expected to be his number one – the thought of him spending all his time with another girl hadn't even begun to cross her mind. But all of a sudden, here she was – standing in the doorway of his kitchen, watching him sitting close to a girl she didn't even know, and she was frozen to the spot, emotions coursing through her she didn't even know she could feel.

_Jealous, _a little voice in her mind said, but she quelled it, and turned to leave when she heard her name.

"Kate! Come in and have a coffee with us, sweetie." Margo smiled, and Jack turned round her see her. Something inexplicable crossed his face when their eyes met, but it was gone so quickly she thought she might have imagined it. The girl – Sophia Marie – gave her a passing glance, but then looked back down to her coffee. Kate was about to shake her head, make her excuses, when Jack spoke.

"Soph… this is Kate, my friend… Kate, this is my girlfriend, Sophia."

"Hi." Sophia said boredly, swirling her coffee round in the cup. Kate echoed her brief greeting, studying Jack's face – for the first time in her life, she had no idea what the expression behind his eyes meant.

_This is Kate, my friend. _Not best friend, just friend. But she could pretend that didn't hurt. Margo was smiling, holding out a cup of freshly poured coffee, and Jack was still staring at her… almost guiltily…

She sunk into the stool next to him, and he gave her a brief, guarded smile. She swallowed. This was going to be difficult.

*

In the end, Sophia's dad came to pick her up after about twenty minutes, and Kate shadowed the pair of them to the door, where she watched them press their lips together awkwardly, at that age where nothing is really certain, yet, and Jack waved her off until the car was out of sight. Then he closed the door, and turned, and she just stood there, in his hallway, looking at him.

He'd meant to tell her, he really had, but somehow he hadn't seemed to be able to pluck up the courage to call her and let her know… it felt somehow _wrong, _to be phoning Kate to tell her about his girlfriend. He'd struggled to bring Kate up in conversation to Sophia, too, unable to put into words their friendship – but it was only concerning him now that the way he had defined her was inadequate. The word friend just wasn't enough.

"I thought we were gonna hang out today." Kate whispered, and winced afterwards, knowing how childish and sulky that had sounded.

Jack shrugged, keeping his eyes on her face, though her expression was making a lump form in his throat. "I was gonna call you. I forgot."

Kate looked down at her feet, and there was silence whilst she gathered herself, let the tears in her eyes dry. It was just Jack, he was her friend, it was _pathetic _to cry about it. When she looked up, there was a smile plastered on her face he could see through instantly. "She seems nice… Sophia…"

Jack nodded awkwardly, shifting from one foot to another. "I met her in the library, when I was doing my science project… she's… cool."

She had no idea why the look in his eyes and the smile on his face made her heart thump so fast in her chest, why she clenched her fists at her side and her breathing seemed so shallow.

"Yeah." She finished lamely, tucking a flyaway curl behind her ear. "You could have told me."

"I'm sorry." He breathed, but he didn't sound it.

There was another long, pregnant pause, and Jack couldn't help thinking that there'd never been an awkward silence between them before. He could see her fists tightly curled at her sides, the line of her jaw clenched, and he knew that despite her smiles, he'd hurt her.

"You gonna go out with her again?" she asked, and he recognised a desperate attempt to sound nonchalant.

"I guess."

Their eyes met once more, and then they both looked away.

"I should be going." Kate muttered, and grabbed her jacket from the banister, shrugging it over her shoulders and walking past him, towards the front door. "Say bye to Mo for me…"

As she left, without so much as a glance, and the door swung closed behind her, Jack couldn't understand why he felt liked he'd committed some horrible act of betrayal.

**A/N: ZOMG, I hadn't realised how long it had been since I'd updated this fic!!! Jeez… Anyway, hope people are still up for reading this, and I hope there won't be a break of over a year before I get round to posting the next chapter… :L**


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